The Courier

Dear Parents

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2021. We had worked so hard planning for a safe return to school this week only for everything to change overnight with the announcement on Monday. This left us with a mountain to climb getting everything ready for home learning and key school provision. The fact that we were able to roll this out in full from Wednesday is a result of a tremendous amount of hard work from all of the team here. Many thanks to everyone involved.

I hope that home learning has got off to a good start for you and your children. As an administrator, I am able to view all of the lessons that are set and although I don't endeavour to watch each one I'm able to dip in and out and get a taste of what is going on. The sheer variety and accessibility of the sessions that have been provided is wonderful to see and I hope that your children are enjoying all of the learning opportunities that they provide. It has also been good to see plenty of Teams meetings taking place as these provide an extra string to the bow for the teachers and provide personal contact for the children as well. We continuously monitor our home schooling at school and review our practise on a day to day and week to week basis. At this stage, I would only say, an excellent start has been made.

This is effectively the third lockdown we have been in during the pandemic and the second time we have had to provide key school provision for critical workers. Since the last pandemic the criteria for eligibility for this has broadened significantly and this week we have been taken by surprise by the high level of demand. I would also point out that all of the families accessing key school have provided full evidence of their eligibility.

Of course, this increased demand is a reflection of the vitally important work that many of you do as parents, but inevitably it puts a strain on us here as we juggle with providing onsite provision as well as home learning. At the same time, I am always mindful of the additional risk to staff and children that any additional contact brings. For this reason, I would ask all critical worker parents to do what they can to keep their children at home, where at all possible.

After a very, very busy week, I'm looking forward to a little downtime this weekend with my family. With few social options on offer, we will plan for some nice long walks in the frozen countryside, plenty of fresh air and perhaps a takeaway (highlight of the week!) on Saturday night.

I do hope you are able to enjoy your weekends as well.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Huge congratulations to Year 2 pupil, Sophia, who has been chosen as runner up in the age '6 years and under' category of Panto Online’s Pantomime Poster Competition.

The competition challenged children to design a special ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ poster for Panto Online and ran alongside their virtual production of the classic panto tale.

Sophia’s design was selected from over 400 entries into the competition so she should be especially proud of her success.
It is not the first time Sophia has had artistic recognition as her entry into the ISA Arts ABC Handprints competition took third place earlier this year.

Her poster is pictured here and also features in the Panto Online Facebook gallery.

What an awesome artistic achievement Sophia! 

On Friday 16 December, Year 6 pupil, Josh, met Adi Robinson who is the Manager of Hope4. Josh handed over the gift bags that all the children had made in school during the last week of term.

Hope4 were very grateful and told Josh that their clients would be so thrilled that someone was thinking about them at Christmas time.

It was another great example of the children fulfilling our School Promise.

Aspiring young cricketer, and Crescent School Year 6 pupil, Amy is making great strides with her cricket. After a successful winter training period last year, where the Warwickshire coaches put her through her paces. Amy was selected for the U11 summer squad to play matches and games for Warwickshire against other counties. After a slow start due to the restrictions, cricket finally resumed towards the end of July.

Amy had an exceptional summer run, batting and bowling to great effect, taking her first wickets and runs for the County. At the end of the summer, Amy was thrilled to be selected to play with the U13 Development Squad, and to then take the winning wicket in a bowl off during their very last game.

After trialling again in December, Amy has just found out that she has been re-selected for the Warwickshire winter training squad. Her training will start at Edgbaston Cricket Centre as soon as restrictions allow. In the meantime, Amy is working hard on her strength and conditioning, so she is ready for the season to begin.

A super huge well done to Amy, we were delighted to hear of your cricketing success!

In the light of the announcement by the Prime Minister of the new national lockdown, and of schools moving to home learning until February half term, Princethorpe College has taken the decision to move its Entrance Exam for September 2021 entry online.

The exams will take place between 9.00am and 12.00 noon on Saturday 23 January, with adjustments for those with agreed access arrangements. Parents will be asked to register their child at 8.50am and verify at the end that their child has completed the work on their own, without any assistance.

The Entrance Exam will comprise of three tests of 45 minutes each, English Comprehension, Mathematics and a Free Writing paper with short breaks in between.  After a brief live welcome from the Headmaster, parents will be emailed links to the tests over the course of the morning and children will complete the tasks and submit their responses online within a given timeframe.

In order to complete the tests at home children will need an internet enabled device and to be able to receive and send emails. More detailed instructions will be provided nearer the day.

Music Scholarship auditions will also take place in an online format during week commencing 18 January and an online Art Scholarship exam will be scheduled for Wednesday 20 January.

Invitations to Academic and All-Rounder Scholarships interviews will be made to selected candidates following the meeting of the Admissions Panel.

This change of plan comes at relatively short notice, but the College believes that this new approach combined with the reference from children’s current school will be the fairest way forward for all candidates in the current circumstances.

Parents who have questions or need further information can contact our Admissions Team on 01926 634201/262/297 or email admissions@princethorpe.co.uk

Strong pastoral care of the children continues to be of the highest priority to us. 

During this lockdown period we will continue to offer Wellbeing drop in sessions for all children who are learning from home. 

These will be confidential with Teams waiting rooms in operation, enabling children to have a chat with a familiar face, just as they would if we were in the playground at break time:

Form Tutors will send out links to these sessions each Monday.

We will be hosting a Virtual Reception Open Evening on Thursday 14 January from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.

The event will give prospective families an insight into the Early Years at the Crescent and the firm foundation we give children for their future learning.

Please do share details of the event with interested family and friends.

For more information and to register for the event please click here or contact our Registrar, Mrs Helen Morley on 01788 523851 or by email admissions@crescentschool.co.uk.

Congratulations to the following children who earned Junior da Vinci badges at the end of last term:

• Josh O and Orla in Science and DT
• Charlie is a double da Vinci student in Maths
• Zahra in Maths 
• Mya in English

As we head into home-learning once again Junior da Vincis will be put on hold as it is hard to effectively monitor the criteria when not in the classroom, instead we will give house points as recognition for effort and achievement.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Congratulations to Chloe B and Liana for reading 1,000,000 words.

Also, congratulations to Edward F for reading 500,000 words.

Please don't worry, Mrs Nelson will keep a record of all Accelerated Reader Badge Winners and keep your badges safe until we are all back in school.

Don't forget Accelerated Reader is back up and running for everyone to quiz at home.

Landmark Levels 

Pupils who have reached Landmark Level on automatic training mode in the Garage and Gigs are awarded JDVs for Maths Practice:

Weekly battle 11 December - 7 January 2021

• Boys scored 44,432 points
• Girls scored   9,520 points

Well done, Boys' Team, again! That is correct - did you know that there are a few more girls than boys in school, so come on, girls!

Most Valuable players contributing the most points to their teams are:

Each class can have the speediest TT Rock Star and that gets you up the status board on the poster. To get on this board you must tackle the single player game in the 'Studio', multi-player does not count for these. These also earn more coins than the multiplayer games too. 

Plenty of action so last week's most improved speedsters in each class are:

Battles add up any points at all as you play! I will let you know who wins in the next Courier.

Please note only the children should play on their account or it influences the level appropriate to them.

Stay Calm and Keep Rocking in Lockdown!

All Crescent pupils entered a number of virtual competitions last term including football, athletics and agility challenges.

Our Year 6 pupils won the Rugby and District competition and were entered into the next round to represent Rugby in the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire School Games.  They had to carry out a number of different challenges including a dribbling relay, a number of passes in a minute, target shooting and tick tock fast feet.  Our students put on a fantastic performance and came 2nd overall, a wonderful achievement, well done all. 

To promote our Crescent Team Spirit during the current lockdown I will be posting a weekly challenge for pupils to take part in on Seesaw.

Each pupil who takes part will earn 1 house point for their team, with the chance to earn up to a further 5 house points for each challenge.  There will be one challenge for Pre-Prep and one challenge for Years 3-6. 

This competition will run for the remainder of this term and I will report weekly on the House that has scored the most points for each challenge as well as a running total too. 

This week it is a Balloon challenge for Pre-Prep and Mountain Climbers for Years 3-6.

Be a great team player and get involved, and why not challenge others in your family to get involved too. 

Monday 25 January 2021 - 8pm

The meeting on 11 January has been postponed to Monday 25 January.  This will take place via Zoom, please come along and join us for this meeting where we will be discussing events for the Easter term.

Log-in details will be sent out nearer the time. 

Please find below term dates for 2020/21 and 2021/22:

The Foundation has the following vacancies:

• Princethorpe College - Deputy Head (Academic)
• Princethorpe College - Assistant Head (Director of Studies)
• Crackley Hall School - Assistant Head (Key Stage 2 and Academic
• Princethorpe College - Teacher of Business Studies
• The Princethorpe Foundation - Marketing and Communications Executive 

Full details and information on how to apply are available on the Foundation website here:

www.princethorpe.co.uk/join-us

Should you know anyone who might be interested in these posts, please do share this information with them.

Could we politely remind parents of children attending Critical Worker School that sadly we are unable to upload photographs of the children's work during the school day. 

Could you please check your children's books and upload any outstanding work (it will be highlighted for you), ready for marking.

Many thanks

Critical Workers Team

Class 4M - Bella and Esme have produced some interesting facts on the Earth, moon and sun.

Class 5F - Faris and Rory have produced a front cover for their new chemistry topic for this half term titled Marvellous Mixtures.

Well done to Zac who received a Blue Peter badge for making Christmas decorations for all his friends from recycled materials. 

Congratulations from us all.

Year 2 pupil, Roisin played for Rugby Borough FC against Hinkley just before Christmas. They won 5-1 and Roisin scored 3 goals and was awarded Player of the Match. She was delighted.

Well done Roisin, we know how much you like playing football here at school.